Around 30 Rockets Explode, Wound 40 Near Baghdad Airport

According to media reports, the rockets targeted camps of Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq.

Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood in Baghdad on Sunday. (Photo: AP)

A camp for Iranian dissidents near Baghdad’s international airport was shelled on Monday, wounding more than 40 residents, the opposition People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) said.

“According to reports from Camp Liberty, as of midnight tonight (Monday), more than 40 residents were wounded or injured in the missile attack on the camp,” Shahin Gobadi, a Paris-based PMOI spokesman said in a statement.

According to media reports, the rockets targeted Camp Liberty, a refugee camp of Iranian opposition group – Mojahedin-e-Khalq.

The bombardment caused casualties among residents of the camp and several caravans were also set on fire, a spokesman of the opposition People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) said.

The bombardment caused major destruction in the camp, including fires and deep craters, Gobadi added.

Another PMOI spokesman, Shahriar Kia said earlier that the group suspected “Iraqi groups affiliated with the Iranian” government were responsible for the shelling.

The PMOI had sided with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein during Iran’s war with Iraq in the 1980s but fell out of favour with Baghdad after he was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003.

The PMOI have since come under attack several times in Iraq. Their camp near the airport was previously shelled in October.

This incident comes a day after an explosion claimed by the Islamic State struck Baghdad’s central district of Karrada, killing more than 200 people while leaving over 200 injured.

(With Reuters inputs.)